Story: How to build a bar-b-que pit in less than an hour.

Its been a while since I wrote my last post and a lot has happened to catch up with. I hope to be a bit more regular now. My laptop broke this summer and that slowed me down. We brought back a new iMac when we visited the States in August, but it took me awhile to get going again. I lost a bunch of photos I had not backed up yet and that didn't help. I promised in my last post or two that I would tell the story of building my bar-b-que, even though I lost the photos I took while making it, but here it is anyway:

Linda was in the States. My daughter's friend, Brando, was staying at our house, surfing and helping me out in the yard for a few weeks. He mentioned how good bar-b-que would be. "You don't have a pit do you?" Brando asked. I said, "You know, I've been thinking about that." Actually, I'd been eyeing an aluminum suitcase that we put some stuff in when we shipped a container load of our "household goods" to Costa Rica last year. While we talked, we had our eyes on a brightly-colored Tucan sitting in the tree limb outside the porch where we were sitting. A pair of squawking Scarlet Macaws flew over on their way back to the mountains from the nearby beaches where they eat from Almond Trees during the day.

I told Brando to follow me downstairs to the Bodega (garage). Maybe I could find something that would work. So we went downstairs and there it was in all its shiny silver glory. The Haliburton Aluminum Suitcase.  I knew Linda was fond of it because it had been in her family for years, but the handle was gone and too hard to replace, and we had a second one that was in good shape. I told Brando to fire up the pile of brush we had accumulated behind the house. I put the suitcase on my work table and started stripping the beautiful, maroon silk from the insides. Of course it had all sorts of other pieces of cardboard behind the silk to give it shape that had to come out. So after I pulled all that stuff off, there stuck a whole array of glue residue. That's where the fire came in. I took the suitcase out and put some of the stuff Brando had lit on fire into the case. Then, I squirted a bunch of lighter fluid in there to make a happier fire. Whala! After a few minutes of sizzle and smoke the glue was gone. Then, I cleaned it all up and took it back inside the garage to make the cut. I pulled out my drill and "SawsAll" from the locked Bodega, drew a circle on one side of the case with a Sharpie, drilled some holes for the saw blade, and cut a nice clean circle out of the bottom of the case.

Now it was time to make the base for the pit. Keep in mind, that it was late in the afternoon when we started thinking about this. We need it done within the hour so we could eat. There were a number of used concrete blocks stacked along one side of our parking area. I looked over and said, "Those will do fine, lets stack 'em up." Brando and I went to work and stacked several blocks together in kind of a horseshoe shape that ended up about waist high. We placed them at the edge of the parking area just inside of the drop off. It was a nice spot because there was a good view of the mountains in the distance and the field of cows across the road. 

Once we got the stack of blocks set, I placed the suitcase on top. It's piano-type hinge worked great to keep the top from falling too fast when you open it. The hole on the bottom of the suitcase allowed for the fire to come up into the suitcase, and leaving the lid cracked a bit allowed for the smoke to escape if you wished. I had brought a few used aluminum pizza pans in our stuff from the States. One was the type used to get a hard bottom crust and had many holes in it. I decided that would be what you laid the meat or vegetables on. That went down on top of the hole. A couple of big stones in both corners of the suitcase keeps it in place, even in high winds.

So, next I had to come up with what to build the fire on. For that I chose another aluminum pizza pan, only this one is more of a wire mesh than flat metal with holes, ringed with a solid strip of aluminum to give it support. We placed it under the top bricks and that seemed to be a good distance from the meat. We laid the top row of blocks on their sides so that air could come through and feed the fire, which it does.

Later a Tico friend of ours who has done some electrical work for us came by and asked me if I wanted any of the "Purple Heart" wood scraps he picked up at a job site he was working on. They were using Purple Heart for the 2 x 8 ceiling beams and were cutting off the excess –– just leaving them on the ground. I had never seen such large pieces of this incredible purple colored wood. I said sure, and he unloaded a pile for me. I picked up a piece and used it with a cabinet handle to make a handle for my new pit. It works well and the extremely hard wood will never rot.

And there you have it! A home-made, aluminum, bar-b-que pit. It was completed in less than an hour, cooks good food and it didn't cost a cent! Is that "Tico" or what? 

Just think, you can make one too. All you would have had to do was include an old, handleless, aluminum, suitcase made in the 30's, along with some used pizza pans, with all your crap you brought with you from the States. If by chance you were lucky enough to have done that, you can purchase concrete block at your local ferriteria. Otherwise, you could look for a Tico grill made from a car wheel painted black with some welded rebar for legs. But, lets get real…… there's always PriceSmart.

Oh, by the way, when Linda came home she was not very happy about me using the suitcase, but she's enjoyed eating the results!